Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Make an announcement or watch live shopping on Google Maps

I received two separate emails today from two different people (1 hour apart) introducing me to their new mashups that both display information in real-time on a Google Map. They both described their mashups as being similar to Twittervision (sister site of Flickrvision), the apparent defacto standard in real-time Google Maps mashups, but running with a different theme. Here they are:

Watch real people shopping for real things on Google Maps:ThisNext.com is described as "a shopcasting network where you can recommend, share and discover great products. Like podcasting, shopcasting is broadcasting your great taste to the world, but instead of music or other audio, you're sharing the products you've picked and recommended." ThisNext.com has incorporated Google Maps into their site in a Twittervision sort of way to "shopcast" these product recommendations to a Google Map. They call it ThisWorld. As ThisNext community members make a recommendation their location is plotted instantly, along with details about the product they're recommending. It's pretty interesting to sit and watch and might just influence an inpulse buy!

BT's Tell'M lets you make announcements on a Google Map (like, right now):Tom D'Roza from explains Tell'M: "Tell'M is specifically for people to make announcements (things like births, weddings, anniversaries etc). Kind of like an online version of the announcements section of a local newspaper. At the moment you don't need to register to make a new announcement and when you add a new post you specify the location on a google map, and can search flickr by (tag, location or username) for public images to accompany your message. The site also provides a GeoRSS feed of all recent announcements, and a KML feed that can be viewed in google earth." The app hails from the domain of BT.com's beta site in the UK, even though this app is clearly relevant to anyone in any location in the world to take for a spin. Another Google Maps mashup from BT I have featured in the past (and that Tom worked on) is the Google Maps BTOpenzone WiFi Hotspot Mashup.